Amazon, the e-commerce giant, has acquired online live gaming broadcast network Twitch for $970 million, to ensure its presence in the gaming market. According to CNN, the transaction was a pure cash deal and it took place last Monday. The news broke in the official Twitch website where CEO Emmett Shear announced the deal himself.
What Twitch does might sound obscure to non-gamers. However according to statistics, every month 55 million people watch professional gamers go head-to-head in ever popular games like DOTA or League of the Legends. Game companies, including Sony and Microsoft, also release the latest gameplays on this network to attract possible buyers.
Can you believe that the gaming industry seems to be now bigger than movie industry?
Initially, Google was also interested in acquiring Twitch. But Google already owns YouTube, the world’s largest video sharing network that already has hundreds of channels that record gameplays for almost any computer game. Acquiring yet another similar network might have drawn suspicion to Google for monopolising the media field and they surely don’t want to get into that trap. Not to forget, Google also lost to Facebook when WhatsApp was acquired for 16 billion dollars earlier this year.
We are convinced that Amazon is trying to shake off its e-commerce company tag with this acquisition. For example, the company has launched Fire, its own smartphone, only a few weeks ago. Then, same-day delivery feature was introduced. Prime loyalty members of Amazon also can now buy a set-top video streaming gadget. One of their most popular products is their excellent e-book reader, the Kindle.
For gamers, the company has its own game studio and also offers Fire TV set-top box to win their favour. With this acquisition of Twitch, the gaming section of the company has become even stronger.
Twitch is a company which came into existence only 3 years ago. Now, users watch no less than 155 billion minutes of gameplay monthly! There are also at least 1 million broadcasters. With the digital video advertising industry set to touch 6 billion dollars in US this year, can you imagine what profits would be like?
